Serena of @sirensfinds and I @blueskyquilter hosted a Q&A on Creative Challenges on Instagram the week of September 5, 2016. What do we know about daily creative challenges?
Serena of @sirensfinds has experience with the Austin Kleon's Steal Like An Artist Journal Challenge. Kathleen of @blueskyquilter has experience with The 100 Day Project making improv fabric art. On the fifth and last day, we talked about How to Use What You Learned.
How to Use What You Learned
Kathleen...At the end of the creative challenge, bring all your daily creations together somehow as a sense of accomplishment and completion. You can set up your creative challenge to have some tangible project done in that time frame, be it a written song, a finished art piece, a written journal of poems or an organized living space. We all need a sense of completion. Reflect on how your creativity has changed over the time. See where you made progress. Acknowledge your progress and share the completion with people you care about. Now start another creative challenge or extend your current challenge. You accomplished what you set out to do. You established a creative habit. Congratulate yourself.
Serena...I agree that there is nothing quite like that sense of accomplishment once you've made it through. You've got all of your experiences throughout the challenge plus the final results and there's nothing quite like it. Treating yourself is definitely in order!
My advice is to use the challenge as a chance to change your perspective on what you do. Look at your process or progress before the challenge and see what elements helped and hurt your work. Make note of these things and work on them over the next few days, weeks, months, etc. Never stop learning, because when you stop learning you stop making chances to improve.
Kathleen...I agree a healthy dose of self reflection can help tease out what you learned so you can figure out a plan to move forward. Serena, why do you think both of us continued our challenges? Yesterday was my 500th day of making a 6 inch improv fabric art square. I continued to create every day after the 100 Day Challenge because it gave me a structure to create more art on a regular basis and it really just became a habit. I love the intellectual challenge of coming up with the colors and designs for my square every day. Why would I stop?
Serena...Structure is important and keeping yourself actively engaged with something. I continued because I enjoyed seeing my progress. I was right in the thick of being burned out creatively and I could slowly feel my old motivation coming back the more I worked on the challenge. Like you said, why would I stop?
Kathleen...My last thought is that one can use the daily creative time as a sort of creative meditation. Step out of time and be present creating. Reflect on the benefits of this daily "Reset" time and think about if this is time well spent and do you want to continue.
Thank you to everyone who submitted questions, joined in the conversation, or read the comments and weekly articles in my Studio Notes blog. We both hope that you found some inspiration to start your own creative challenge. Still feel you need some encouragement? Reach out to us to our Instagram accounts or blogs. The more ideas the merrier.
Remember adding creativity reduces stress. +creativity-stress
Serena, thank you so much for hosting a Q&A with me. We have discussed and shared so many ideas that I will be thinking about for awhile.
Find Serena @sirensfinds on Instagram and hello@sirensfinds.com for email. Her website and blog are at sirensfinds.com. Find Kathleen @blueskyquilter on Instagram and kathlenwarrenstudio@gmail.com for email. My website and blog are atkathleenwarrenstudio.com.
Click HERE to hear my playlist on Spotify for the Blue Square series.